AFTER three hours of crashing through the loosely packed sea ice of the Storfjorden, the MV Grigoriy Mikheev was now at rest, engines silent, going gently with the flow as all crew and passengers enjoyed a bizarre barbecue on the rear deck.

The stunning glacial mountains of the east coast of the island of Spitsbergen filled the horizon, while nearer at hand the large glaucous gulls, along with the more diminutive ivory gulls, crowded around the ship, perching on icebergs and chasing each other through the blue skies of the Arctic summer.

It was a surreal moment, for as we tucked into the superb food, washing it down with mulled wine, Russian pop music carried across the barren wastes from the small stereo that the crew had brought to the party.

Two of the girls entertained us with a Turkish belly-dance, while less than 100 yards from the ship, atop a large island of ice, a huge male polar bear snoozed the afternoon away.

I'd desperately hoped that we might see a magnificent ice bear during this trip, but had realised that even though there is a healthy population in Svalbard, it was still unlikely that we would actually bump into one.

So it was with great excitement just half an hour before that we'd all rushed to the upper deck to watch this massive lumbering pile of creamy fur on legs stroll past the ship, then curl up to our stern and go to sleep.

This was just one of many great surprises on this voyage.

Ten days earlier we'd slipped out of a murky Oban on the west coast of Scotland, setting a compass course for North with the aim of dropping by at a handful of isolated and little-visited islands en route to Svalbard.

First stop had been Sula Sgeir and North Rona, two remote bumps in the North Atlantic, where gannets dived around the ship, grey seals lounged on the shore and a rare albatross had quizzically looked down upon us from his perch on a rocky stack.

We'd continued to the Faroe Islands, stopping off to explore Torshavn, the capital, before continuing to one of the remotest outposts in the Northern Hemisphere, Jan Mayen.

This volcanic island has as its entire population a handful of Norwegian scientists from a small research station, and up until a couple of years ago visitors weren't allowed to land here.

On our visit though, we were entertained by the Commander and his staff, and encouraged to explore on foot. We walked along black-sand beaches with the towering volcano of Beerenberg rising above, while great white glaciers swept down to the sea.

Next stop was Bear Island, another little-visited place, with yet another Norwegian research station.

Here the wildlife met us down on the shore, in the form of an Arctic fox, while small birds, mainly snow buntings, turnstones and purple sandpipers, scattered ahead as we walked.

Then it was into the pack ice. The Grigoriy Mikheev is a Finnish ice-breaker, built as an exploration and research vessel for the Russians, and the captain took immense pleasure from aiming his ship at the biggest chunks of ice he could find, bull-headedly bashing a way through, and easing them out of our path.

From the ice-choked waters of Storfjorden, where we'd dined with the polar bear, we swung a course southwards around the beautiful southern tip of Spitsbergen, known as Sorkappland, and slipped into the mountain-fringed inlet of the Hornsund.

Here, no less than 14 glaciers swept down to the sea, and we explored the among the ice floes in small Zodiac boats, finally going ashore at a Polish research station, where reindeer grazed the tiny Arctic plants, and barnacle geese and little auks nested on the rough scree slopes above.

Our last morning brought us in to Longyearbyen, the capital of the Svalbard archipelago, before homewards flights, via Tromso and Oslo, back to the UK.

It had been an all-too-brief visit to the Arctic, but one that had whetted my appetite for more.

Now is the time to see the Arctic at its best, before global warming changes this stunning landscape and its captivating wildlife forever, and I know I'll be heading again soon ...

factfile

Graham Uney booked this expedition-style cruise and flights home from Longyearbyen through World Expeditions (see link below), Freephone 0800 0744135), while the trip itself was operated through Oceanwide Expeditions in the Netherlands (oceanwide-expeditions.com, tel: + 31 118 410410).

Expedition-style trips are available throughout the Arctic and Antarctic, as well as to the Atlantic Ocean islands. This trip cost around £2,500 for 11 days, though prices vary according to itinerary and cabin class.